Editor's comment: Consolidation makes it a memorable Monday

When people come to look back over this year they will remember this week not just for being the one before Easter but also as the moment when consolidation really went up a notch in the channel.

The day started with the announcement that Capita Group was spending £15m to acquire Ramesys but when combined with the news of the merger of Bell Microproducts into Avnet for $594m it became a day of consolidation of quite significant proportions.

It has been quite a while since a distributor of the size, pedigree and global coverage of Bell Microproducts was picked up and it is going to be one of the key moments of this year.

Consolidation has been a constant feature of the channel landscape once it reached a stage of maturity a few years ago and the growth opportunities were as much about acquisition as through organic expansion.

Some will no doubt interpret these deals as a sign that recovery is picking up and investments are being made for the future. That may well be one interpretation and both of these deals seem to be motivated by a desire to expand technology and customer bases.

Now with these two deals the channel has plenty to discuss and of course when the dust settles the landscape will be slightly different. Of course this will not be the last cases of consolidation this year but it clearly shows that activity can and will happen at all levels of the channel in 2010.

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